SPRINGFIELD - Despite some reservations about the defendant's mental state, a Hampden Superior Court judge ordered inmate Gene Disorda to serve 2-3 years in prison Monday after he completes his current sentence for threatening to harm Sheriff Michael J. Ashe and release anthrax into the Springfield water system.

Disorda, 31, was convicted last week of sending a letter to Ashe in 2012 saying he would release the anthrax into schools, hospitals and other municipal buildings unless the sheriff released three inmates at the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow, including Disorda, who signed the letter “Cameron.” The other inmates he listed were Christian Barbee and Russell Cooper.

Disorda was sentenced in March to state prison time for assault and battery on a correctional officer. He will serve that sentence after he completes a 3-4 year term at the Hampden County jail for another crime. Prosecutor Maida Wasserman told Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder that Disorda has a long criminal record that include other convictions for assault.

Defense lawyer Raymond Jacoub told Kinder that his client also has mental health issues and has attempted suicide. He asked that Disorda be sentenced to a 2-3-year jail term to run consecutively with his current sentence.

"There's no way he could have carried out the threat," Jacoub argued, noting that Disorda has no access to anthrax.

The defendant's letter to Ashe said “people will die” if the sheriff did not release the three inmates. He also threatened Ashe personally, saying, “you don’t want anything to happen to your family.”

A corrections officer testified at trial that Disorda asked him how to spell Ashe’s name, and that the officer wrote it down for him. Less than an hour later, Disorda asked him to mail the letter addressed to Ashe. Several words, including one of the inmates' names, were misspelled in the letter.

Although he noted Disorda's "lack of sophistication," Kinder said he considered the crime, making a written threat, very serious.